By Jonathan Riskind and Jim SiegelPublished December 3rd 2006 in Columbus Dispatch

A clear majority of Ohioans who voted in the Nov. 7 election preferred a Democratic congressional candidate.

So did Franklin County voters, where Democratic House candidates drew in excess of 10,000 more votes than Republicans.

The result?

While
Democrats won nearly 53 percent of the congressional votes statewide,
only about 39 percent of Ohioans will be represented next year by
Democrats in Congress.

Thatís the biggest so-called "wrong
winner" disparity in the country from the 2006 midterm elections, says
the nonpartisan FairVote.org.

Aided by gerrymandering ó the
drawing of districts to favor one party ó Republicans captured 11 of
the stateís 18 congressional seats, assuming that GOP Rep. Deborah
Pryce, of Upper Arlington, survives a recount in the 15 th District. If
she does, all three House members representing Franklin County will be
Republicans.

Aside from a Democrat taking over for disgraced
former GOP Rep. Bob Ney, of Heath, in the 18 th District, the floodwall
that Republicans built in Ohio to protect their lopsided control of
congressional districts held up strongly against the Democratic tsunami
on Nov. 7. "You build the levees and you hope they withstand the
highest possible storms," said Scott Borgemenke, the Ohio House chief
of staff, who had a large hand in crafting the current congressional
map. "But you donít want to do so much that you overbuild the wall,
because then you minimize your opportunities for seats."

Such
is the reality of politics and power in Ohio after two straight rounds
of congressional redistricting ó after the censuses in 1990 and 2000 ó
controlled by the state GOP. The 2006 midterm elections underscore just
how much the party in power can insulate its candidates.

"Through
redistricting and winner-take-all elections, the political elite are
determining how people are represented," said Rob Richie, executive
director of FairVote.org, which advocates the creation of multimember
congressional districts where like-minded voters are able to elect
winners in proportion to their voting strength. "This is a clear
example of how our current system produces unfair outcomes."

Generally,
the party drawing the lines gains an advantage through gerrymandering
techniques known as "cracking and packing," in which voters from the
other party are either spread thin, diluting their effectiveness, or
packed together, giving a district an unnecessarily heavy Democratic or
Republican tilt.

Redistricting cut up Franklin County in such a
way that three Republicans now represent a Democratic-leaning county,
Ohioís second largest. Pryceís district is mostly the western half of
Columbus and Franklin County, but Republican linedrawers also gave her
overwhelmingly Republican Union and Madison counties. That provided the
margin of victory for Pryce, who lost Franklin County by more than
7,500 votes, according to Franklin County Board of Election figures.

GOP
Rep. David L. Hobson, of Springfield, lost his part of Franklin County,
a Democratic area in the southeastern corner of the county, by nearly
2,400 votes, although Democrat William Conner was a little-known
candidate from outside Franklin County. But Hobson swept to victory
with about 61 percent of the vote in a 7 th Congressional District
mostly made up of GOP-dominated counties such as Fairfield, Pickaway
and Greene.

Republican Rep. Pat Tiberi, of Genoa Township, lost
the Franklin County part of his 12 th Congressional District, which
includes much of the East Side, by 451 votes to Democrat Bob Shamansky,
of Bexley. But Tiberi beat Shamansky so badly in GOP-dominated Delaware
County and western Licking County that he won overall with more than 58
percent of the vote.

"If Franklin County truly had the
representation it should have, we would have two Democratic
representatives, not three Republicans," said William Anthony, the
countyís Democratic chairman.

When he draws a map, Borgemenke
said, he starts in the inner cities, ensuring he doesnít shift black
voters in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act. But from that
point, he gets a lot of leeway.

"Your goal in redistricting is
not only to be fair and follow the law, but itís to maximize seats," he
said. "Thereís no doubt there is a partisan factor in redistricting.
But a lot of it is not just flat-out partisan, itís also incumbent
protection. Thatís just the way it is."

An optimal district,
Borgemenke said, is one that is expected to lean 53 percent in your
partyís favor. But a bunch of slightly leaning GOP districts could have
spelled disaster for the GOP in this anti-Republican year, and
incumbents want a lot more cushion.

The process could be even
more interesting in 2011, when Ohio, because of slow population growth,
is expected to lose at least one and possibly two congressional seats.
That would force lawmakers to redistribute about 1.3 million people
into the remaining 17 or 16 districts.

Longtime Democratic
consultant Dale Butland, a senior adviser to Shamanskyís campaign, said
itís possible his party might get to redraw the congressional lines
more to its liking after the 2010 Census. The legislature, which
remains controlled by the GOP, draws the congressional maps. But
Democratic Gov.-elect Ted Strickland will have to sign the bill if he
wins re-election in 2010.

But Butland said he would rather the
entire process be altered to be more fair and produce more competitive
districts. While the current system is "the way the game is played now,
I personally believe we can do better than that," he said.

Ohio is not the only place where FairVote.orgís "wrong winner" phenomenon occurred in last monthís elections.

In
Michigan, while Democratic U.S. House candidates won about 51 percent
of all votes statewide, they captured just six out of 15 of the state
delegationís seats, or 40 percent, according to figures compiled by
FairVote.org.

In an instance favoring Democrats, the GOP
captured nearly 51 percent of the statewide congressional vote in Iowa
last month, but won two out of five House seats.

There also are
a few states where there is a big disparity with one party gaining a
majority of the vote but holding a far greater percentage of seats than
its majority would indicate, such as Democrats in Massachusetts, who
won about three-quarters of the statewide congressional votes but
captured all 10 House seats, Fair-Vote.org research fellow Jack
Santucci notes.